Team of investigators track global crime networks targeting children

Child porn cases continue to grow, FBI says

There is an exploding threat from child predators who photograph their abuse for sale or trade. WISN 12 News investigative reporter Colleen Henry talks to a task force trolls the Internet to stop child pornographers.

Agents said their work is a cat-and-mouse game -- tech-savvy child pornographers trying to stay one step ahead of the law and investigators out to stop predators and rescue their child victims.

On the streets in Milwaukee, he was known as Sgt. Phil Wentzel, spokesman for the Milwaukee County Sheriff's Office and a respected commander of the patrol division.

In cyberspace, Wentzel called himself countryboy and swapped his homemade child pornography like baseball cards.

"These aren't the scary individuals everybody thinks about. These are your friends. These are your neighbors. These are your family. These are individuals that are close to your children that you will never know until it's too late unless you keep an eye out for it," Milwaukee police Officer Brant Ungerer said.

Ungerer and FBI agents Brett Banner and Jason Pleming are cybersleuths of the Milwaukee-area Innocent Images Task Force. They won't discuss the Wentzel case directly, but court records detail their detective work that unraveled the web spun by Wentzel and his cyber-associates.

In Denver, agents raided a home and seized a hard drive that led them to San Diego, Kansas City, Pittsburgh and Milwaukee. It was a network of the most dangerous of child pornographers -- those who groom children, document their sexual exploitation and then pimp their prey in high definition.

"They're not going to report somebody's offending because they have a bond with that individual, be it a parent, coach, teacher, day care provider," Banner said.

The Denver bust exposed a face-to-face meeting where Denver, Kansas City and San Diego pornographers shared victims and digital images. The San Diego suspect revealed live-streamed sex shows by the Pittsburgh suspect. Pittsburgh named another customer -- countryboy from Wisconsin, who sent him cash to watch the sexual assault of children.

"If you want to get into certain groups, you have to prove you have certain types of child porn. The more hardcore you can produce buys you more street cred," Pleming said.

In breaking up the ring, investigators rescued more than 20 children from ongoing abuse. Wentzel pleaded guilty to sexually assaulting six sleeping or drugged children, most at a campsite he rented in Fond du Lac County.

He will be sentenced next month.

For the trio of investigators, it's not a job, it's a mission.

"It's horrific to watch this stuff, horrific to do this stuff, but if you understand what you're doing and why you're doing, it you can do it," Ungerer said.

That job is getting tougher. Agents said the FBI opened 16,000 child porn cases between 1996 and 2005 -- a 2,000 percent increase since the creation of the Innocent Images Task Force.

"They just honestly can't stop," Pleming said.

The task force warns parents it's critical they communicate with their kids and heed their instincts. Parents of many victims said they suspected something but didn't want to over-react.

"Don't have this idea that it can't be my child because it could definitely be your child," Pleming said.

Internet providers now use new technology called photo DNA, which recognizes sexually abusive images of children to help law enforcement.